Committee: Can't advance tobacco-age increase

Members of the Mountain Home Public Safety Committee (from left) Wayne Almond, David Almond and Eva Frame talk Tuesday evening about a proposed ordinance that would have raised the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21 years old inside Mountain Home.(Photo11: Scott Liles/The Baxter Bulletin)Buy Photo

A proposed ordinance that would have required customers be at least 21 years old to purchase tobacco products in Mountain Home failed to advance out of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday evening.

Following a 45-minute discussion on the topic, council members Wayne Almond, David Almond and Eva Frame each voted against forwarding the proposed ordinance to the full City Council for consideration. Council member Jennifer Baker, the Public Safety Committee’s fourth member, did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.

The proposed ordinance was presented to the committee earlier this month by Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT), a group of Mountain Home eighth- and ninth-graders. The group had earlier made a presentation to the full City Council in February, where the students talked about tobacco products being easy to obtain from 18-year-old high school students or older siblings.

Under the proposed ordinance, it would be illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase tobacco products like cigarettes or chewing tobacco inside the Mountain Home city limits. Those under 21 would have also been prohibited from purchasing e-cigarettes, vaping devices, wrapping papers or pipes.

“You’re trying to do something that’s really, really good,” committee chairman David Almond told a group of about 15 Mountain Home Junior High School students that attended Tuesday’s meeting. “But it seems to me that any time we have an issue, everybody wants to pass a new law. Instead of punishing the people who are breaking the law, we want to pass a new law to restrict people that are law-abiding citizens.”

Arkansas law allows those 18 years old and up to purchase or use tobacco products. The proposed ordinance discussed Tuesday night would have applied strictly to Mountain Home; the minimum age to purchase tobacco products would remain 18 for surrounding Baxter County.

Council member Wayne Almond asked city attorney Roger Morgan if the proposed ordinance would stand up in court, given that the state’s minimum age to purchase tobacco products is 18 instead of 21.

“I’m not going to tell you what a court might or might not do, but I can tell you that the Municipal League feels comfortable with it,” Morgan told the committee.

The states of California, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon and Hawaii have all increased the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21. More than 160 cities — including New York City, Kansas City, Chicago, Cleveland and Boston — have adopted similar city ordinances. One Arkansas city — Helena-West Helena — has adopted an ordinance requiring tobacco purchasers to be 21 years or older.

“I would ask that you at least listen to the children in the room who are advocating for a proposed law change,” Fox told the committee after reading Peterson’s letter. “The young folks here are passionate, but inexperienced. But they have wisdom from watching tobacco come in and out of the school, with the knowledge that tobacco entered the school from someone who was of age to buy it and then passed it on. By declining the access from 18 to 21, then you would be limiting the access to that tobacco product.”

Mountain Home police officers issued four citations for tobacco use on school grounds in 2017, Police Chief Carry Manuel said Tuesday. Two of those citations were for minors possessing tobacco, while the two other citations were issued to adults smoking in their automobiles while a young child was present.

“It just seems like we’re not attacking the problem where it is — at the high-school level,” council member Wayne Almond said.

Council member Eva Frame spoke in favor of the students’ efforts to address underage tobacco use, but said she did not support the proposed ordinance.

“Laws are supposed to be there to protect the people,” she said. “But I think we can have too many laws, and then they are not being enforced.”

After discussing the proposed ordinance for 45 minutes, committee chairman David Almond asked for each council member’s thoughts. All three Public Safety Committee members in attendance said they did not support advancing the proposal further, and the meeting ended.

“I think it’s a great thing, what the kids are doing,” David Almond said. “I don’t disagree with any of their ideas about smoking or using tobacco products. I support them.”